My Delirium
by Thennowandalways
Summary: “Because while I may hate you, Granger. You’re not a murderer.” Hermione and Sirius, it's not going to come easy. Angst and violence, and sex, oh yes, definitely sex.
1. Chapter 1: Reunion

He couldn't decide what to deal with first. The body on the floor or the staring, huddled mess of a Witch in the corner of the room.

Five years, it had been five long years since he'd seen the girl, loyalty to his best friend had dictated that. And now here they were. What a reunion.

"He's dead." Harry uttered the most obvious of all statements as he straightened up, tucking his wand back into its holster and running his hands through his hair with a deep sigh.

For a moment Sirius could do nothing but stare at his Godson, of course he was fucking dead. He'd felt it as soon as he crossed the threshold, something desperate had happened here, and that... _girl _was right in the middle of it.

"Who is he anyway?" He nodded briefly at the body on the floor; he'd seen enough bodies by now that they no longer conjured up anything more than a faint regret.

"Her husband."

"What?"

"Her husband, that's Bo, her husband..." he trailed off, perhaps noticing Sirius' confusion.

"They've been married three years, didn't I tell you?"

Sirius shook his head mutely. Married? She'd got married? After everything she'd said? Everything she'd done the silly little bitch had run off and gotten fucking _married?_

And now he was dead.

H hadn't known what to think when Harry had grabbed his arm and Apparated him without so much as a by your leave. He'd been even more confused to find himself in the kitchen of a smart London townhouse with a dead man on the floor and a woman huddled in the corner.

Now that he knew the woman was Hermione and the man on the floor was her husband he couldn't, for the life of him fathom what was going on.

"Harry?"

But there was one thing he did know, one thing years of life had taught him. He knew the sound of fear. Whatever she'd done to deserve his animosity he didn't like the tone of her voice.

She sounded terrified.

But she looked fierce.

She was all manner of different from the soft, gentle girl who had been so easy to love. Something in her eyes looked brittle now, but yet still determined. Her features seemed harsher somehow, the planes of her face almost eerie in the evening light. The sight of her chilled him and he felt a shiver of anticipation. Whatever was going on here, it wasn't going to end well.

Harry was the first to move.

"Hermione? Sweetheart, what happened?"

He stepped forward without hesitation and drew her into his arms, stroking her hair and placing a brief kiss on her forehead.

"I don't know. Harry, I don't know. I just woke up and he was like that. Merlin, Harry, I don't know."

But as her eyes met his over Harry's shoulder he knew what the shiver had been about, and as he bent down to run his wand over her husband's body he wondered why he bothered, he already knew the diagnosis.

But it was right that he should do it, that Harry must not be put in that position. He still had a duty to protect him, boy or man, and protect him he would.

"What's the verdict?" Harry was so trusting, he always had been, Sirius had never quite worked out if it was a fault or a virtue.

But one thing was for certain.

Hermione Granger was liar.

"Natural causes." He almost whispered as he swept away the thin trial of smoked formed letters...

_...Avara Kedavra..._

And now she had made one out of him too.

****************************************

Sirius had to stop himself flinching as his hand touched her arm. What he wouldn't give for a Muggle upbringing now, some way of knowing who to call, who would deal with a dead body. But for obvious reasons that was Harry's job. He dealt with the husband, lucky old Sirius got the wife.

There had been a brief, whispered argument between the two men, both trying to pack enough force into their words without alerting the Witch a few feet away from them that there was a problem.

Oh no, there was no problem at all. She had killed her husband. Merlin, she'd killed her husband and for some obscure reason he'd lied about it and now he wanted nothing more than to get as far away as possible and leave her to her fate.

"You take her." He hissed at Harry. "I'll..."

"You'll do what? You're a liability in a supermarket, Sirius. What the fuck are you going to do with the Muggle authorities?"

"Why'd she marry a Muggle anyway?" He knew he was sounding like a child as he kicked his toe against the table leg in frustration, and Harry's raised eyebrows did nothing to ease his embarrassment.

"Oh I don't know, perhaps she felt her friends in the Magic world might judge her, hey?"

"Deserved it." He mumbled in return.

"For fucks sake, Sirius. Just get it together and take her back home."

"What? Where?"

"Home, Grimmauld Place."

"No, no way. Who knows who'll be there. Why can't she go to yours, if you're all so pally still. Kept that quiet didn't you?"

Harry, quite rightly, ignored his last muttered accusation and lowered his tone even more. Sirius felt his heart sink even more. This was Harry's 'don't mess with me' tone, this was a manifestation of the determination which had kept him alive all these years, and Sirius knew he'd lost.

"You listen to me. I'm not an idiot and I know full well that neither of you are being honest with me. Hermione is a friend of mine but that man did not just drop dead at the age of 28. Until I know what's going on she's stays somewhere safe, for her and for everyone else."

Right then, slightly less trusting then he'd thought.

He'd carefully fostered his dislike of her over the last five years. For a while it had, perhaps if he was honest with himself, bordered on obsession. But it had faded and now he'd been left with the bitter tang of resentment whenever she was accidently mentioned.

And it had always been an accident. No one in Grimmauld Place had uttered her name on purpose in almost five years. Ever since it had become crystal clear that she wasn't coming back. He realised now that he'd been a fool. Of course Harry and Ginny had kept in touch with her, Ron too if he thought about it. He wondered how many of the others had secretly kept Hermione Granger, or whatever her name was now, as part of their lives?

Well the carefully constructed bubble that he, Remus, Tonks and the others had nurtured over the years was about to burst with a bang wasn't it?

And it started now, with the burn of her skin under his hand and the slight twitch in her eye as she brought her hand up to grasp the crystal on the chain around her neck as her eyes met his again.

"Why?"

"Why what?" His tone wasn't gentle, but neither had hers been. This was Hermione as a woman, not a girl, and she was currently scaring the shit out of him. She hadn't so much as glanced at the man on the floor since they'd arrived. How the hell had Harry known something was going on anyway?

"You know what."

And he did, why had he lied? Why had he covered for her instead of marching her into the Ministry at the tip of his wand with the word 'Murderer' on his lips?

He could pretend, could claim he didn't know, or even better he could just ignore what he'd seen written in the air and pretend there was nothing wrong at all. But deep down he knew it wouldn't work, she'd never been stupid and he couldn't see how five years could change that. She knew he knew. And he knew why he'd done it, the word didn't fit, it would never sit well on his lips.

And while he pictured his front step in his mind and clasped her closer towards him he swallowed the small, sharp pang of nostalgia which sprang from deep inside him and told her the truth.

"Because while I may hate you, Granger. You're not a murderer."


	2. Chapter 2: Familiar Ground

Hermione woke with a start. The sheets were wrapped round her like a cocoon and for a brief moment she thrashed in panic. It was only after she had managed to free her arms to brush the tangle of hair from her face that she let herself fall back into the pillows and take a look around.

Un-fucking-believable. That bastard had put her back in her old room. Of all the rooms in this house he'd seen fit to dump her in this one.

Although dump wasn't necessarily the right word. The curtains were closed and he'd placed a glass of water on the table next to her, was that before or after he'd drawn the sheets up around her, she wondered?

Without thinking she had let her hand creep over to the left side of the bed, expecting to find warm skin with which to counter this cold night. But there was nothing there, there was nothing there because he was dead.

Bo was dead.

And Merlin help her she couldn't feel a thing. It seemed like something was just out of her grasp, some twinge, or a brief glimpse of emotion, but she couldn't reach it and after a moment she stopped trying.

What was the point anyway? It had been years since she'd been able to conjure any real feeling. Somewhere between walking out of this house and waking up back in this bed that side of her had died.

Along with her husband.

Who she'd killed.

Cold, unrelenting dread settled in her stomach. It had been busy creeping into her soul as Harry and Sirius had arrived with a pop in her kitchen and now it was intent on making its presence known.

Holy Merlin, she'd killed him. She didn't know why, or how, but she knew it was true. She'd had a busy day, had worked her arse off as usual and picked up a bunch of lilies at the corner shop on the way home. She'd kicked off her shoes in the hallway, poured water into a vase and kissed her husband hello. Not because she loved him, not anymore anyway, not because she wanted him either, just because...

She kissed him because he was her husband, for better or worse, and because he expected it.

And then she killed him.

If she could just remember what had happened, remember why, it might be alleviate some of her panic. But the truth was one minute she'd kissed him hello and the next Sirius Black was standing in her kitchen and staring at her like he'd never seen her before.

And then he'd brought her here.

Bastard.

The room was exactly the same, dark green wallpaper giving way to a large white window frame, one she'd spent hours leaning against as she contemplated whether she was capable of walking out or not.

"_Granger?" Oh god, not now, of all times not now. She was frantically throwing her clothes into her case, picking her measly possessions out of the chaos Remus had left in his wake._

"_Granger, what' going on? Why are you packing?"_

_She'd worked hard not to catch his eye. It was his damned eyes which had caused this disaster in the first place. Everything had been going so well, she'd come so close to her happy ever after. And then he'd turned his fucking eyes on her and now she was packing her bags, safe in the knowledge that in five minutes time he would never look at her that way again._

"_I'm leaving."_

"_What?"_

"_I'm leaving, we're done, you might find that making sure he's OK is a better use of your time, Black."_

_She hadn't needed to look to see him flinch at her use of his surname. Double standards maybe, but she knew that while his use of 'Granger' was affection itself, she had never spat out his name with such venom before. _

_The hand on her arm burned. _

"_What do you mean you're leaving?" He'd hissed at her_.

"_I'm leaving, departing, Hermione Granger has left the building ladies and gentlemen." Her voice was flat and she thanked Merlin for those long hours she'd spent keeping her private emotions just that, private._

"_Why."_

"_Because he asked me to marry him, Sirius. He asked me to marry him and we both know that I can't."_

"_It's nothing..."_

"_It's not nothing you wanker. It's everything, it's a fucking disaster and I'll break his heart. Better now than later don't you think?"_

_He stepped back from her then and she'd seen the first glimpse of hate behind his eyes._

"_You'll destroy him."_

"_No, I won't. I'll hurt him and he'll hate me, they'll all fucking hate me. But he'll be OK, he'll still have you."_

_She stood straight and looked him steadily in the eye. _

"_We both know why I'm doing this."_

The shivers had started, she knew they'd come. Shivers followed memory lapses, just as night followed day.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, what had she done?

Why? Why had she killed him? She knew it was irrational, unhealthy even but she couldn't help it. In the place where her grief and guilt should be there was just an overriding, burning need to know why.

Sirius had been right; she'd killed, yes, but never without reason. They all had, that's why they'd stayed alive to tell the tale. Hermione knew she didn't have it in her to kill someone in cold blood; there had always been a reason.

Merlin help her, there must be a reason.

But instead there was a void. Just a blank, a broad expanse of nothing to add to all the other nothings she had accumulated over the years.

_Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age._

The thought made her laugh out loud now, the noise was sudden and sharp in the night and she clamped her hand over her mouth in fright.

_Hermione Granger, heart breaker, heartbroken, insomniac memory lapse freak._

That was better. Much more appropriate.

Well, this was getting her nowhere. All the whys and wherefores in the world weren't getting her answers. She let her hand creep to her necklace and felt the familiar calm wash over her. You could say one thing for Bo, he certainly knew his jewellery. He'd said it would calm her and it had never failed. It wasn't particularly lovely, but since the first time he'd placed it gently around her neck she hadn't felt quite right without it.

Mind you, she didn't feel right with it either but she chose the lesser of two evils. She'd looked at her options; artificially induced calm or this constant, unfathomable panic which she caught rising in her chest now and then.

Calm it was then.

**********************************************************

Nothing seemed to have changed, and she was surprised. She'd always suspected that they would have held some kind of Hermione Granger exorcism. In fact she had been able to picture them both stumbling through the house, Firewhisky bottle in hand as they systematically rid the house of the ghost of her.

But instead it was just as she'd left it, right down to the stillness of the air in the hallway and the creak on the second step. For a moment she let herself imagine she was merely wondering to the kitchen for a glass of milk, taking time to gaze at the stars through the window before either making her way back upstairs to run her hands over her boyfriend's ever delightful form, or finding her favourite spot in the library and talking into the night with Sirius.

Maybe it hadn't been the eyes after all, maybe it had been the words. They'd always been the ultimate aphrodisiac to her really. Words were how Remus had captured her heart, and they were how his best friend had broken it.

She paused on her way along the hallway, letting her hand trail gently over the solid wooden door. It was irrelevant now anyway, whatever had happened in that warm, comforting room was all in the past. She'd heard enough from Harry and Ron over the last five years to know who was living here, what a merry little band they'd all become, and she knew there wouldn't be any beautiful words for her in the morning.

Come morning they would all know she was there, if they didn't know already, and then the shit really was going to hit the fan. She sighed and leaned her head against the hard wood, relishing the cool against her suddenly burning cheeks. Come morning there would be questions she wasn't sure she was ready to answer.

"Getting sentimental on us, Granger?"

Or maybe the questions started now.


	3. Chapter 3: Old Friends

He wasn't surprised to see her down here. The shock would have been if she'd managed to sleep through the night.

How did one deal with the after effects of killing one's husband?

"What's going on, Hermione?" The words were out of his mouth before he'd had time to think about it.

"I don't know. I wasn't lying, Sirius, I truly don't know." She stayed as he'd found her, head against the library door and one hand grasping that hideous crystal at her chest. But as she spoke she tilted her head against the wood so she could look at him and he caught that awful look in her eye again.

There had once been a time when he would have scoured the depths of hell to find the one responsible for putting that look in her eyes. There had been a time when this whole household would have risen up in righteous fury at the thought of anyone causing their little Hermione this kind of despair.

And even now he felt that small, insistent part of him which had whispered that it wasn't just her fault lurch in his chest before he slammed it down mercilessly.

"You killed him?"

"Yes."

Silence, he wasn't sure he'd ever heard such silence. And Merlin help him but he couldn't drag his eyes from her, although he wasn't completely sure it wasn't just self preservation. This little Witch standing in front of him like a shadow of their past had just killed her husband and once again he knew what it was to be scared of Hermione Granger.

But then she spoke, and it was like a whisper.

"Do what you need to do, Sirius. Call the Aurors, close the doors of Azkaban behind me and leave me there forever. It's your call, but I can tell you now that no matter what you do I won't be able to tell you what happened. I. Don't. Know."

And he believed her. Without question he believed her and he knew he'd have to take the lead now because she was rapidly losing her battle against whatever it was that was attacking her from the inside.

"Right..." But it came out more like a croak, he cleared his throat and tried again.

"Right then, open the door, let's get this over and done with."

"Let's get what over and done with?"

"Your interrogation, Granger. I'm an Auror and somehow you've turned me into a liar and a failure at my job in one very strange night. I don't know what's going on, but I want to, and one way or another I'm going to find out."

He reached for the handle beside her and gave the old door a gentle shove.

"You're going to explain to me how the first time I see you in five years involves you just having killed your husband, and why exactly it is that you don't seem too surprised to know nothing about it."

She remained standing against the door frame, enveloped in a calm which belied the look in her eyes, a calm which was doing more to unsettle him than almost anything else which had happened in this god awful night. Well she was going to have to snap out of it.

"Now."

**********************************************************

He saw her swallow a gasp as she walked into the room and, truth be told, he was having some trouble regulating his own breathing. Had it been five years? Five whole years since they'd whiled away their midnight hours together in this room?

Five years since they'd covered each and every topic they could think of in so much depth that they'd begun to feel as if they knew each other as well as they knew themselves?

Five years since he'd shaken that small speck of guilt off his shoulder, the one which whispered that she should be upstairs with _him_, not down here. The guilt had gone so easily, persuaded in an instant that Remus would be more than happy to see the two most important people in his life getting along so well.

Because it hadn't always been like that, had it? No, it had been shouting and relentless bickering. They had been chalk and cheese. Then somehow things had shifted and they had found some kind of truce in this room.

Well it was a moot point now wasn't it? Because then she'd left in the night and his closest friend had been a mess, and whatever part of his own heart had missed her so terribly had been squashed out of duty and necessity.

And this didn't change a thing. She had done an unforgivable thing to Remus and when all this was over things would go back to the way they had been. It would, once again, be a Hermione free zone. Never mind that Remus had moved on, never mind that they were being extraordinarily childish about the whole thing, never mind that Ginny had once been so moved to anger by his attitude that she had plastered his room with photos of Hermione before screaming in his face.

"She's not dead you know?"

Well she'd been dead to him, and dead to the four others sleeping upstairs. And just as soon as was possible he'd march her out the front door and they could all get on with their lives.

"Are you going to use Veritaserum on me?" It was a fair question, it was what he usually would have done with a killer, but he wouldn't usually be questioning them in his library, nor would he usually have lied to his partner and attempted to cover up the fact that there had been a murder at all.

"It depends, are you going to lie to me?"

She snorted at that and flicked her hair in a most Hermione manner, it'd been years since he'd seen the gesture and for a second he just stared.

"What would be the point? I don't know anything anyway."

"I'll know if you're lying." Everyone had their gifts and that was his.

"I know."

She sat down gingerly on the sofa, as if she expected alarm bells to ring. When they didn't she pulled her feet up under her and stared at him expectantly.

"Please, Sirius. Please just ask me what you need to know. I feel like a prisoner."

"You're lucky you're not one."

"I know."

He sat down in his trusty chair, resting his long, lean legs on the stool in front of him and reaching with everything in his soul for the ease and arrogance which usually protected him when he felt so damned vulnerable.

"How long have you been married?" He'd start off easy, they both knew it wouldn't stay that way.

"Three years on Tuesday."

"How long have you known him?"

"Four years."

"I thought you didn't want to get married." He didn't need the arch in her eyebrow to let him know that he'd overstepped the bounds of legitimate questions, but to his surprise she answered anyway.

"No, I never said I didn't want to, I said I couldn't. I couldn't marry Remus and you know it."

Well he'd asked for that hadn't he.

"You moved on pretty quickly."

"Is that a question?"

"Yes."

She sighed and brushed her hair out of her eyes, she must have expected he'd take this route, the look in her eyes was almost one of resignation. He was embarrassed, it was hardly professional, but then he'd stopped being a professional some time earlier tonight hadn't he?

"We all make mistakes, Sirius."

"He was a mistake?"

"To begin with, yes."

"So why marry him?"

"Because of the baby."

Baby? What baby? Harry'd never mentioned a baby. She'd married him because of a baby?

"I didn't know you have a child."

She swallowed slightly, and looked away from him for the first time during their conversation, or interrogation, or whatever the hell it was.

"I don't, there was an accident. I lost the baby."

And now he was in that horrible position of trying to continue a conversation which had come to its natural end. He didn't want to delve into her sad history and she didn't want to tell him. In fact what he wanted most of all was to run from the room and make Harry fill him in on all the sordid details, miles away from her.

"I'm sorry."

"OK, well." And all of a sudden she changed, right in front of his eyes she scared little girl morphed into someone entirely new.

She swivelled in her chair and crossed her legs, placing one hand on her knee and her other arm over the back of the sofa. Her eyes were like flint and there wasn't so much as a tremor in her hand to betray the nature of this conversation.

"Let's cut the bullshit, Sirius. I'm not a little girl and you're no longer my friend. Let's treat this as what it is shall we?"

He nodded his agreement, it came across as a serious and sombre gesture but in truth it was all he was capable of.

"We're skipping past us, me leaving here, anything to do with Remus or this house because it's completely irrelevant. I'll stick to what you need to know."

"I travelled for a while, broadened my horizons and found myself a little I suppose. I came back here, found work in Muggle London in a PR firm and started learning everything I could about the business. It won't come as a surprise to know there was an end goal in sight, it's all very well and good having all these causes to fight for but what's the point if you can't make anyone listen? With the exception of a select few we're very reluctant to stand on a soap box in our world, and that means things are over looked."

"I met Bo through one of the bands I was promoting, he was there stage manager and he made me laugh. One thing led to another and we were dating, it wasn't anything serious but then I was pregnant."

She'd kept her gaze steady as she spoke until now and if it wasn't for that twitch returning to her eye and her hand reaching for that damned crystal he wouldn't have known anything was wrong. He wasn't sure what it was but he hated that necklace, it seemed to radiate menace to him even as he saw her visibly calm down when she had it in her hand. Still, ugly jewellery was the last of his worries right now.

"We married because we thought it was the right thing to do for the baby, I think we both knew it wasn't what we wanted but you have to live with the consequences of your actions. I don't know what happened. It was my first lapse of memory, all I know is that I woke up in the hospital. Bo said I fell down the stairs, Merlin knows how, I was always so careful."

Sirius had unconsciously leaned forward during this little speech and niggling doubts were starting to run into his mind. Never, not once in the years that he'd known her had she done so much as stumble. Everyone had accidents, of course, but there was something in her eyes. Merlin but they were still so expressive, and right now they showed nothing but confusion. She was genuinely at a loss, just as she was about the events which had transpired tonight.

"That was almost three years ago. The Doctors said it must have been the way I landed, I must have hit my head. Even the Healers at St Mungo's couldn't find anything else to explain it. I just blank sometimes, it always seems to be at night and at home. Other than that there's no rhyme or reason to it. Bo was as comfortable in the Magical world as I am in the Muggle one, we managed to build some kind of life together and there's nothing dark and horrifying in my past which I'm suppressing. He was a good man, Sirius. A good man, for all our problems."

This was the first time she'd shown any emotion for the man she'd left lying on her kitchen floor, and it was muted at best. Any number of things were failing to add up in his tired and baffled mind, and she put voice to almost all of them.

"If my husband was such a good man then why did I kill him, Sirius? Is it something wrong with me or was it something to do with him? Why the fuck can't I remember great big chunks of the last three years and why, in the name of all that's holy did you put me to bed in my old fucking room?"

Well they were fair questions, each and every one of them, and he wouldn't begin to know how to answer them, any but the last one anyway. Unfortunately he didn't get the chance.

"Because all the other rooms were full."

Hermione jumped from the sofa as if she'd been hexed and took two small steps away from the door, her eyes wide and her hand clasping desperately at her crystal.

"Hello, Hermione."

"R-Remus."

Well, bugger.


	4. Chapter 4: To Play A Player

It was amazing, but he didn't look a day older to her. His hair still had exactly the same amount of grey, there didn't seem to be even one extra strand, and his eyes, his beautiful, kind eyes were, surprisingly, still just as kind.

She'd expected... well she didn't know what she'd expected, but it certainly wasn't for him to pad into the room as if this was just another midnight chat and take a seat not one metre from her.

"Sirius, do you think you could leave Hermione and I alone for a little while? I think we've got some things to discuss."

And she certainly wasn't expecting that.

Sirius' raised eyebrows suggested she wasn't the only one who was taken by surprise at Remus' quiet calm. His eyes darted between the two of them and for a second it looked like... was it... no, couldn't be... but it definitely looked like, well, concern... concern for her.

Did she have anything to be concerned about? Words were just words at the end of the day, she'd hardly expect flowers and forgiveness, and she knew he'd have some less than pleasant home truths to point her way. In truth she welcomed them, it would be such a relief to get this conversation out of the way, she'd have been a fool to think she could avoid him forever; the Wizarding world was only so big after all.

But another part of her, the part which was tired and frightened and trying so hard to grieve wasn't quite so sure. Just hours ago she'd murdered the man she'd sworn to be with forever. She'd pulled a wand on a defenceless man and sent him to his grave and no one, least of all her, could explain why.

Was this really the right time to add another issue to the mix?

"Padfoot, seriously, we'll be fine. Just give us chance to clear the air. Please?"

Hermione sighed and nodded to Sirius, how he'd become to seem like her ally rather than her... well whatever he'd been, she wasn't quite sure. But one way or another some kind of easy truce had settled between them once again. This damned room, it had magical properties she was sure of it. The truce probably wouldn't last, but his slightly cold questions had to be better than whatever Remus had planned for her.

Still, no one had ever accused her of being a coward.

Actually, that wasn't strictly true. Remus had accused her of just that, and now he was going to want to know why.

"OK, we'll talk in the morning, Hermione."

She nodded without looking at him, the fire had never looked quite so interesting, and for want of something to do with her hands she leant down and stoked the burning embers the Muggle way.

"You never did like to mix fire and magic."

His voice was still soft and comforting and she was so easily transported back to one of any number of nights she'd spent in this house, by this fire. She'd always been with one of them, they'd hardly ever left her alone, no one had, for so long.

She ran her hand along the puckered skin of her arm without thinking about it, reassuring herself that she was awake. The scar was never there when she was dreaming.

"I've seen what the combination of the two can do."

"I know."

She gave the embers one last prod and hung the poker back up against the stone. There was nothing left to occupy her now, nothing but him.

"I'm sorry about your husband."

Bo, what would he have thought of this reunion? How many times had he assured her that she'd done the right thing?

"Yes, I am too."

If he thought it a strange response he didn't show it, she had to wonder exactly how much Sirius had shared on that particular subject. But some kind of instinct suggested that he'd kept the most pertinent point to himself, she hoped he had anyway. Merlin knows how she'd manage to set foot in the kitchen tomorrow morning if everyone knew.

"I'm sorry."

"Yes, you said." She still hadn't quite managed to look him in the eye, it was going to take a little more time to build up that particular kind of courage. What could she say, anyway?

_I miss you, I love you, I love him too, you know it deep down, don't you?_

Somehow she didn't think now was the right time, or even if they were the right words. Did she really love him still? After all this time? Wasn't there a chance that all the butterflies heaving inside her were just a simple case of unfinished business?

"No, I'm sorry about what happened between us. I'm sorry you were frozen out. I'm sorry you're not in my life anymore."

Well that broke the eye contact stalemate, she turned to face him in a split second, eyes wide.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Don't fuck with me, Remus."

"That's quite a mouth you've developed."

"People change."

"Yes."

Too late, she realised she'd said those words before.

"_People change, Remus." She was trying in vain to pack her case, while every item she laid down was immediately flung from the case with a flick of his wand._

"_You keep saying that, but you haven't said how." Another flick sent her diary flying and she stamped her foot in frustration._

"_Will you STOP FUCKING PACKING?"_

"_You can't stop me leaving."_

"_Why not? Why can't I stop you? You're supposed to love me, surely that means something to you?"_

"_Don't do this."_

"_Don't do what? Don't try everything within my power to make you change your mind? How could you think for one second I would do anything less?"_

_CRASH_

_The delicate glass vase he'd bought her for their anniversary just two months ago smashed against the wall over her shoulder and Hermione acknowledged, finally, that she needed to put this to an end. Now._

"_I'm sorry, I really am. I'm being honest, as honest as I can be. I don't want to marry you Remus, I'm too young and I've been too protected. It's time for me to do some living of my own, on my own."_

"_Bullshit, I'm not a fool, Hermione. There's more to it, I know there's something you're not telling me."_

_As honest as I can be, she whispered in her mind._

"_There's nothing else, Remus." She stood as tall as she could manage and fought with every fibre to stop her eyes welling up as they gazed at one another, if she cried now she'd never make it out of this room, and if she stayed the whole world would come tumbling down._

"_I don't believe you. Look at me and tell me you don't love me."_

_And that was it, that was the moment she needed to break all their hearts._

"_I don't love you, Remus."_

_And something in the atmosphere seemed to stretch and snap and she knew, with absolute clarity, that she wouldn't be coming back._

"_Well then fuck you."_

Five years, it had been five years and yet the words seemed to echo between them as if it was yesterday.

To her horror Hermione felt her eyes welling up. It had been years since she'd shed a tear, surely she could stop it now? But despite her most valiant efforts she felt the tell tale tricking feeling against her skin and turned her head away from him in embarrassment.

"I missed you." She whispered. She could offer him that little shred of honesty if nothing else.

"I missed you too." He knew she was crying, people changed but not too much and he'd always known what she would do before she did.

"Why did you go, Hermione?"

"I told you, I needed..."

"Please don't give me that crap about living on your own. You owe me some honesty." His tone was still gentle, but it was a firm kind of gentleness which left very little room for manoeuvre.

"I wasn't lying, Remus. Sometimes I just felt so trapped, like I was living in a bubble. I thought I'd go mad if I didn't make a change."

"But that wasn't all of it." It was a statement rather than a question and she wasn't entirely sure what to say in return. What would be the point in that kind of honesty now? What could it bring any of them but trouble? But she did feel like she owed him, and he'd been so kind tonight, so Remus, he'd...

With a horrible, gut twisting realisation Hermione realised he had completely played her.

It had been so easy to lull her into this false sense of security, his quiet tone and gentle question left her no room to storm out, no chance to refuse to answer his questions in a flurry of righteous indignation. Damn him all to hell, he'd worked on her carefully and he was a master. Not to answer would make her seem like the villain in the face of his gesture of reconciliation, it would make her seem ungrateful and unreasonable and he would walk away, without answers perhaps, but still clearly cast in the role of the wronged.

She had no way to win this. How had she left herself so open? Just how off track had she been thrown by tonight? Hermione Granger was a player herself, she wasn't used to being on the other end of the game.

"You bastard." She whispered it without thinking, and she couldn't miss the surprise in his eyes before they crinkled at the sides and his mouth settled into a wry grin. He knew exactly what she meant.

"What did you expect?"

He chuckled and despite herself she gave a smile of her own. Tonight was becoming more abstract by the second; why not settle in for the ride?


	5. Chapter 5: Truth and Dare

It was difficult to know where to go first, how to strike the balance between devastating truth and those 'oh so kind' lies that people were fond of hearing.

But this wasn't people, this was Remus, and however he'd played her this evening, she owed him some truth. He probably wouldn't settle for anything less. Like Sirius, he had such a gift for seeing into the heart of people. She'd sometimes suspected that he had known the truth of things, and she may end up having questions of her own.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

She snorted and eyed him from under her lashes.

"Over ambitious, maybe?"

He returned her look with a smirk of his own as he summoned the whisky bottle to his side and poured them both a glass.

"OK, Hermione. Why don't you start at the beginning and see where it takes us?"

She cast around desperately for some words, any hook or handle on which to hang her tangled confession, how far was she going to go anyway? Could she do that to Sirius? _Should _she do that to Sirius?

But he looked so calm, and she wondered how it was that he hadn't shouted, or threatened or even cajoled. He'd simply spread himself across his favourite chair and given her that soft little half smile which used to make her insides shake like jelly.

"Are you scared?"

For the first time that night she'd actually managed to surprise him and he raised an eyebrow in answer to her question.

"No, should I be?"

Well, that was as good a hook as any.

"No, I loved you very much, you know."

"I know, or I thought I knew, but it all changed, you left so quickly."

"I was very young, Remus, and very scared."

"Of me?" He asked in surprise and she almost laughed, how could she have been scared of this man?

"No, I was never scared of you. It was me, I suppose, how strongly you felt for me. I'd never had anyone look at me the way you did and everyone seemed so sure, you, them, Sirius... you were all so sure."

She scooted herself from the edge of the sofa and sat as close to the fire as she could without getting burned, anything to stop the dreaded chills.

"You cold?"

"I'm always cold."

"Oh." What else could he say? Although she didn't miss the slight frown and she wondered if they were both remembering the same words.

_You, Hermione Granger, are like my own private sunshine._

"You weren't sure?"

"I used to have nightmares, you know. Such real dreams, about what would happen if things went wrong, what would happen if I hurt you? Would I lose my friends? Would you ever speak to me again? How cold would the world be without you? They got more and more vivid, and more terrifying, it was like they knew before I did..."

He drew himself down from his own seat and knelt down beside her, close enough to touch her but maintaining such a subtle distance.

"Knew what?"

"That it wasn't right, for me, for you, for any of us. And they were right... just look what happened in the end."

"What do you mean, for any of us?"

And that she couldn't answer. Not without incriminating someone he held so dear.

"Please don't ever think that I didn't love you. I did, and I think that for a while, maybe even a long while, we would have made each other happy. But I wasn't quite me back then Remus, and it was only a matter of time until I realised that."

He handed her another glass and she took a grateful sip, relishing the burn.

"After the accident you all kept me so close and so safe, and I really thought that was I needed. I couldn't fathom any possible reason why I would ever want to be without you, not after coming so close... But I wasn't always like that, was I? I started to remember what I'd been like as a girl, I was so fearless wasn't I? Little pieces of me started to come back and one morning I woke up and I felt like I was chocking."

She saw him flinch out of the corner of his eye, his movement was so slight but it was still as clear as if she'd thrown her drink in his face.

"It wasn't you, Remus. Nothing in the way that I felt about you ever changed. I know it sounds clichéd but it was me. I used to sit down here sometimes in the night, with Sirius, I'd come down after you'd gone to sleep and all my thoughts were whirling round my head till I thought I'd scream. He would talk about so many places and the things that he'd seen and I wondered how I'd let myself let go of all those dreams I'd had."

"Why didn't you talk to me? Maybe..."

"No, you would have said the right things and done whatever I'd asked and how fair would that have been? How could I have dragged you away when I knew that all you wanted was your friends and family and the chance to walk down your high street with your head held high? I would have made you walk away from all the things you'd been wanting for so long, and you would have done it, because you loved me. You had everything here, your job and this house and your friends... and Sirius."

And there it was, she'd known she was doing it, she'd dropped his name into her confession too many times for it to be just coincidence.

"It seems my oldest friend has a recurring role in this story."

Once again, she had no words. And for a while it seemed he didn't either.

She'd done the best she could to explain how trapped she had felt without suggesting he had been anything less than her greatest love, because he had been. Whatever feelings she had railed against, whatever had begun to grow and flourish in her heart, it had been Remus who had had meant the most to her. Of course there was the fear, the real gut wrenching, nightmare inducing panic which left her gasping for breath in the early hours. And that fear had been born of the suspicion that while he was at the centre of her heart, he wouldn't always be.

And now he was calling her on it. And if she'd wondered at the beginning of this conversation where her limit was, now she knew.

It was right here, right now.

"I'm going to bed, Remus. It's been a very long and very strange night."

She dragged herself to her feet, feeling the tiredness she's so far avoided seep right into her bones. But his hand on hers stopped her.

"I know you loved him too, Hermione."

"Of course I loved him."

"No, I mean I know you were in love with him too."

And thank Merlin the sofa was so conveniently placed, because she hit it with a thump.

"What... what do you mean... that's ridiculous...I mean... well, I mean..."

And she accepted defeat with a sigh.

"How?"

He smiled that half smile at her again, tinged with just a little bit of sadness in the corners of his eyes.

"I'm not sure who was more devastated when you left, 'Mione."

The tears she'd so strongly willed away made an aggressive return at the sound of such a term of endearment on his lips and he covered her hand with his once again. His hands were just the same, long and strong and calloused enough to be the hands of a man who had _lived, _and that little butterfly inside of her gave a sharp twitch.

"He was so furious and after a while it seemed that it was a little too much to be all on my account. You know I'm not a stupid man, Hermione..."

She giggled just slightly through her tears;

"Hardly."

"... and I got to thinking, about all the time you spent with him, and the way you sometimes sought each other out. You used to give him that smile, the one I thought was just for me. And because I could never imagine a more unlikely couple I was actually pleased. I remember thinking how great it was that you two were getting on so well."

He smirked at her again, but this time it was slightly less friendly.

"What a joke."

And it gave her just a glimpse of the nightmare she would have caused if she'd stayed much longer.

"I'm sorry, Remus. I'm so sorry. I never meant... you must know nothing happened."

"I know."

The air around them had thickened and her hand crept to the dark green crystal once again. She missed the way his eyes followed her hand and the flash of concern when she grasped the cool stone in her hand and breathed in deeply.

"It's OK, Hermione."

"It's not OK."

He squeezed her hand ever so slightly and she closed her eyes at the familiar feeling, for another brief and magical moment it was as if nothing had changed.

"Have you spoken to him about it?"

"No, I never said a word. Even when I made my peace with it, even when I fell in love with Dora. I figured it out a while ago, 'Mione, that vital fact that you saw so long ago. We wouldn't have worked, and not just because you were in love with my best friend. You were right; our futures had different plans, even if I didn't see it then."

"I love this house and the life I have now, Dora and I are so right in so many ways. I look at you now, and I know we wouldn't have lasted."

Despite herself she tasted jealousy on her tongue and did her best to bite down the snort of derision which was threatening to break free. She'd never been Tonks' biggest fan. But right here and now she supposed she owed her the benefit of the doubt. After all, if it wasn't for her and Remus' clearly happy relationship would he have let her off quite so lightly?

"I'm not saying I'm happy about it, I'm not saying that I wasn't angry, and bitter and hurt. And I'm not saying that I can support anything between you because I honestly don't know about that..."

He trailed off and ran his hand through his grey brown hair as he flicked his eyes from the fire to smile at her sheepishly.

"You're still beautiful, 'Mione, maybe more so now, and a part of me I've tried very hard to bury deep, deep inside still wants you very much, and I'm not sure I'd be able to watch him put his hands on you..."

"Remus, there's nothing... my husband..."

She tried to interrupt, to make a promise, to remind him that her husband had just died...

_At your own wand_

To promise him that nothing would ever happen. To remind him that Sirius hated her. But she knew that if it was up to her she wouldn't necessarily be able to keep that promise and what was the point in lying?

"I don't know what's going on with you, Hermione. I know that something is off, that things aren't quite right with you, and I know that your life is going to be all over the place and you think that the last thing you need is any more complications."

"Exactly."

"But Sirius isn't an easy man, is he? What would ever make you think that anything about being in love with him would be easy?"

"I'm not in love with him."

Next time she would have to try and remember to say it like she meant it. Right now she wouldn't have been able to give an honest response if someone held a wand to her head.

"It's late, I'm tired and I'm going to bed."

He stood and stretched his arms above his head and she tore her eyes away from the sprinkling of hair at the waistband of his jeans. Merlin, she was a mess.

"I'm sorry about the circumstances, but I'm glad you're back. Just give me some time, Hermione. Maybe one day we'll really be friends again."

And as he bent down to give her a brief kiss on the cheek, and left her to the quiet solitude of the night time she thought that that, if nothing else, would help her sleep through what was left of the night.


	6. Update

Hi all, this is just a quick note to say thankyou very much for all your lovely reviews. It's really good to know people are enjoying this.

There won't be any new chapters for a couple of weeks as I am going on holiday. I'm not abandoning this story though, so please don't worry!

I just don't want to rush a new chapter for the sake of getting it updated, add that to the fact that I leave in 2 hours and I am definitely not packed and I think it is going to have to wait until I get back!

Cheers

Mel x


	7. Chapter 6: Night Terrors

_Hello all, I'm back! Hope you've been enjoying the story, I'll try and update regularly now and we'll see where it takes us shall we?_

_Please read and review as ever, I'm not ashamed to admit I love reading them!_

_xx_

Chapter 6: Night Terrors

It was warm, and it was the warmth which bothered her most of all. There was a churning inside of her, a fear which was tumbling through her body like a barrage of molten mayhem, she'd felt it before. She was more familiar with the feeling than any sane person would hope to be, but she had always associated it with the cold. The knot in her stomach came coupled with dripping cellar walls and the smell of rot and moss; it came with a cold bite in the air and the cool feel of steel against her skin.

But now she was warm. She was aware of the smooth varnished floorboards of her hallway beneath her feet; boards which Bo had slaved over for weeks. She could smell the heady scent of orchids from the hallway table and the sharp reassuring tang of freshly brewed coffee in the air.

Everything was just as it should be, and nothing was. Why was she here? Why was it so damn quiet? And why did that quiet footstep behind the kitchen door create more dread in her heart then Bellatrix had ever managed?

Her hand went automatically to her necklace and she flinched as the stone burned ice cold, her hand throbbed like a heartbeat and she tucked it under her arm to smother the pain as she pressed herself against her cream coloured walls. Walls which had once filled her with tranquillity as she contemplated bringing a little person into this house, walls which now seemed flat and unforgiving, leaving her nowhere to hide from...

Well, from what?

The throbbing in her hand diminished and she brushed her thumb across the skin of her arm in a well practiced gesture. It was funny how these habits calmed her, the crystal at her neck and the scar on her arm...

The scar on her arm, which was gone.

In one quick rush she knew, she was dreaming. Nothing here was real. The house which she'd once called home, the coat stand by the door, the cold unforgiving light which shone beneath the kitchen door.

It wasn't real, it wasn't her and it wasn't her house. But the fear felt real, it demanded her attention and, more alarming than anything else, it felt familiar.

Part of her was screaming to wake up, to bury herself in the sheets and blankets of Grimmauld Place and try and work this out from the outside looking in. But really she knew that the only way to know was to keep walking and push through that door. Put a wand to her head and she wouldn't have been able to explain why she had to know, a nightmare was a nightmare after all, nothing more.

But this one felt more like a memory. It was her walking down this corridor, not an abstract version conjured by terrors in the night. If it was a memory it wasn't one she owned though, whatever her mind was telling her she had never felt this fear in her own home, and she knew the only way to get out of this was to find out what was behind that door.

The stone was freezing now against her skin and she could feel the shivers beginning to run through her. That was more like it; cold and fear she could cope with.

The door was as real as it had ever been as she pushed it open, but the powerful blast of magic which shot through her as she walked through the door had no place in her home. No sooner had she felt the last sparks in her finger tips then the world started to shudder at the edges. The light in the room began to narrow and dim and her arms felt like led as they hung at her side.

_Move, move, move._

Her conscious mind, always the voice of reason, was screaming at her but try as she might the most she could manage was a half hearted shuffle to spin herself around to face the door.

_Walk, just walk. Move your fucking legs and WALK._

But then she heard the footstep behind her.

_OK, scratch that. RUN..._

And still there was nothing. Nothing but the sound of her breath and the beat of her heart as it tried its best to burst through her chest.

And the feel of the arm as it pushed her into the wall, and the hard press of a strong body behind her.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?"

And the sound of screaming.

****************************************************

"Hermione?"

The screaming wouldn't stop. Her fingers clawed for the wall in front of her, all her sense and stability had vanished in an instant, it didn't matter that it was a dream. It didn't matter that in reality she was tucked up safe and sound miles from this godforsaken house. All that mattered was the overwhelming need to stop that noise and find a way out of the prison she had once called her kitchen.

"HERMIONE."

Warm hands were holding her down and her desperate fingers found flesh to scratch and scrape as the sound of horror and torment rang through her ears.

"Fuck, she's going to have my eye out. Sirius, stop staring and help me."

_Sirius?_

_What?_

It wasn't him, whoever it was that had pushed her into that wall and whispered words in a tone which literally froze her with fear, it wasn't him.

And that could only mean one thing.

_Safe._

She was safe.

"Sirius!"

She barely noticed her forehead connect with another as she shot bolt upright in her bed, eyes wide with fear, arms flailing and only one word on her lips.

"Please!"

And he was there; he was there as if the last five years had vanished in an instant. Strong arms pulled her close as he tried desperately to calm her. She could feel his hand tremble as it stroked her hair and she knew that the feel of her heart pounding against his chest must have frightened him, Merlin knows it was scaring seven kinds of hell out of her.

But his hands kept stroking and he murmured words of light and safety against her cheek and she felt her heaving breaths begin to calm and the wracking tremors coursing through her soften to a gentle shiver.

And she was back in another time and place. Outside a crumbling, burning building, trying so hard to find comfort in the sound of Remus' voice in the distance. But it had been different arms which had saved her then, the same arms which were saving her now.

"Thank Merlin. Thank Merlin you came. I don't know... my house... I don't know."

"Shh, quiet, love. I'm here; you know I'll always be here. Nothing's going to happen to you sweetheart, you know I won't let it."

And he drew back to look at her. Brushing her hair back and wincing at her tear stained face as he tilted her head to catch her eyes with his own.

Dark, intense eyes gazed into hers in a way she hadn't seen in far too long and at last she allowed her vice like grip on his arms to relax and her hand came up to press against his heart. It was a silent gesture of thanks and remembrance which she knew he wouldn't miss.

God help her but she was falling apart. There was almost nothing that she recognised anymore. Some memory which had never been hers had stolen into her dreams and in only a few minutes it had inspired such fear. She honestly believed it could have killed her, she'd never been a solid believer in the power of dreams but she would gladly make her commitment to believe in them now.

Her husband was dead, she was a murderer, her house which was once a haven had become a hell and she was completely at sea. Hermione Granger had once felt invincible. She'd been strong and powerful and fearless.

And she'd known what she was fighting.

And now she knew nothing.

The world was spiralling out of control around her and yet one thing remained constant; in this place, with this man, she was safe. And a small and hopeful voice inside her whispered that he would be there to help her through it. Whatever _it_ was.

His eyes hadn't wavered and now neither did his voice.

"I promise I won't let anyone hurt you."

As she allowed him to lay her back against the cool pillows she was unaware of Remus ruefully rubbing his forehead as he clambered up from the floor.

As she closed her eyes she was unaware of the fierce grip Sirius had on the side of the bed as he wrestled to process what had just happened, and what he had said. Words and actions had exploded forth completely unbidden and now he was in the very position he had been trying to avoid for five long years. He was faced with the fact that he was still completely in love with her.

And as she drifted off into the first peaceful sleep in what felt like months she was completely unaware of two sets of soft footsteps as the only wizards who had ever lay claim to her heart quietly left the room.

"Merlin." Sirius groaned as he leant against the wall and ran a tired hand over his face and through his hair.

"What the fuck was that?" Remus' eyes were wide and his tone was sharp with concern.

"I don't know, something's very, very wrong isn't it?" Sirius sat down on the step at his feet and rested his head against the wall, seeking some form of solid foundation in a rapidly shaky world.

"Yes." Remus sat down heavily next to him.

"She's back isn't she? We've got to help her, don't we?"

"Yes, she's back."

"Have we made our peace with that?" Sirius raised a questioning eyebrow at his oldest friend. Which way would it go? If Remus said no then they would do what they could as quickly as they could and then remove her from their lives again. He knew it would hurt, it would cut him deep and quick and burn like fire but he would do it, because that's what friends did.

But if he said yes then there would be doors springing open all around him and somewhere along the line he would have to make a choice.

For the moment he would conveniently ignore that voice inside him which knew that the choice had been made almost the minute he'd clapped eyes on her again. He would ignore the fact that he had made the same choice when her screams had sent him running to her room and her fear had instilled ice in his heart.

He would ignore the blatantly obvious love in his arms and his eyes as he had tried to bring her back to them, from whatever sort of hell she had been trapped in. Five minutes they had spent in that room watching her wrestle with herself as they tried to wake her, for five long and frightening minutes they had seen her body clench and thrash around. For five minutes he had watched her panic and heard terror he never wanted to witness again. The strongest silencing spells in his repertoire had been tried and tested tonight, and so had his resolve to stay away from her.

He had failed.

"Sirius, I made my peace with it all some time ago."

"What?"

"We've never spoken about it, you and I. But I'm not a complete fool, my friend. You're the one with questions to answer now."

And Sirius heard the unspoken words as clearly as if they had been yelled into his ear.

_I know you love her. I know you loved her then._

Oh crap.

"Are you OK?" It was all he could think of to say, after all what could you say to a truth like that?

"No." Well at least he was honest.

"Are _you _OK?"

Sirius chuckled wryly. It didn't matter that this had almost been a complete betrayal, it didn't matter that he was the reason Remus had lost the girl he had once thought to be the love of his life. None of it mattered to Remus now. He was a bigger man than Sirius could ever hope to be and he was concerned about his friend.

"No."

"Christ." Remus' Muggle upbringing broke through as he rubbed his face in his hands and muttered the only word he could find to encapsulate the madness of the last few hours.

"I know." And with a heavy sigh Sirius hauled himself to his feet and extended a hopeful hand to the man who could as easily chose to punch him as he could chose to take this gesture of peace.

To his relief Remus took his hand and clasped it for a brief moment before raising his practiced, sardonic eyebrow and asking the question on both their minds.

"Drink?"

"Fucking hell, yes."


End file.
